Overnight from Thursday, March 13 into Friday, March 14, 2025, locals will be able to see a lunar eclipse -- pending good weather and no cloud cover, of course.
The Georgia Southern Planetarium's Dillon Marcy explained the science and the best way to catch a glimpse of this lunar event.
"Viewing the eclipse is easy as long as you're willing to wake up in the middle of the night," Marcy said. "The moon will start turning a blood red color at 2:30am this Friday. It will reach its peak at around 3am, which means it will be completely red. It should end around 3:30am, when it will turn white again."
Marcy explained the reason for the red is due to the moon moving into earth's shadow.
"The moon is far enough away that not all light is blocked, but the light that does make it to the moon is the red part of the spectrum that can easily pass through our atmosphere," he shared. "It's the same reason we have red sunsets. The light with higher frequencies gets scattered and are limited in how far they can go, but the red light can just zip through."
Marcy also noted that the Earth's shadow is technically red all the time, but we can only see it when it is reflected back at us by the moon. He said he's often asked why we don't have lunar/solar eclipses all the time. The moon goes around earth in a slight incline, he says, so we have to wait for the moon's orbit and the sun's path (called the 'Ecliptic') to line up.
This 'eclipse season,' Marcy says we will also have partial solar eclipse March 29th, though we won't be able to see that one.
The next lunar eclipse will be on March 3rd 2026, so check it out tonight or wait until next year! You can learn more about tonight's event at https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2025-march-14.
Check out upcoming shows at the planetarium here, including an afternoon show today (Thursday) at 3pm that's all about eclipses.
The next public evening show is Galileo on March 27 & 28, with tickets available on March 17th.
